


5 Times Lotor Called Spider-Keith a Hero (+1 Time He Meant It)

by EyesHalfFamiliar



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Lotor is a shitty teen with a heart of gold, M/M, They Make It Work, keith is spiderman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-03-12 13:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13548318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EyesHalfFamiliar/pseuds/EyesHalfFamiliar
Summary: Lotor doesn't believe in heroes. It makes getting involved with one - even for purely academic purposes - a bit awkward.Featuring comic book style antics, some drama, and a happy ending.





	1. The First Time

The note in Keith’s locker was unexpected. He didn’t exactly have a lot of friends at school, not since Shiro graduated and went off to college. The only note he’d ever gotten before had been Lance’s “it’s on, mullet!” aggressively scrawled on a torn-off corner of notebook paper. That had been confusing, considering Keith didn’t learn who Lance was until a week later.

This note was different. It was written on crisp stationary with Keith’s name elegantly inscribed on one side. Like Lance’s note, the message inside was brief and enigmatic. Unlike that note, which had inspired only confusion, this one turned his stomach cold. The message was innocuous enough - “Meet me in the lot behind the cafeteria after school.” - but beneath it the author had drawn a perfect replica of the spider symbol from Spiderman’s costume.

Keith’s costume.

_Fuck._

He thought about skipping out and ignoring the anonymous sender, but if they did know something, that could lead to trouble later on. Besides, Keith had never been one to back down from a confrontation.

The lot itself was nothing impressive, just an ugly patch of ground mottled with weeds, cigarette butts, and stacks of wooden pallets and rusted piping. There’d been some kind of construction planned years ago that got scrapped, and now it was just a place kids went to smoke or make out. There were at least a few stacks of weathered materials tall enough to hide behind.

It made the guy standing there seem even more out of place, all dressed up like he was going to a job interview: button-down shirt, slacks, nice shoes, and posture like he was carrying a stack of books on his head. Keith recognized him vaguely as a mid-year transfer student who was supposed to be a big deal. Rich parents, or something. Keith mostly knew him as “that competitive guy from gym class” and “that guy who always dressed way too nice for no reason.”

_What’s his name again? L-something?_

“I’m glad you decided to come,” he greeted.

_Louis? Lawrence? No, it’s something unusual._

“What do you want?” Keith asked bluntly.

“Not much for conversation, I see.”

Keith glared. This guy had the nerve to call him out and then expected a conversation?

“If you have something to say, then say it.”

_Damn it, what’s his name?_

“Very well,” the young man conceded. “I know you’re Spiderman.”

And there it was. Not exactly a shock, but it still twisted Keith’s insides to have it confirmed. He tried to school his expression into something casual and incredulous, though he wasn’t sure he succeeded.

“Spiderman? No way. That’s ridiculous…” _Lotor!_ “…Lotor.”

Lotor looked at him assessingly.

“You just remembered my name, didn’t you?”

“Uh… no?”

Lotor chuckled.

“You’re a terrible liar, do you know that?” He shook his head in mock despair. “It’s a wonder you’ve maintained a secret identity as long as you have.”

Keith bristled.

“What makes you think I’m him?”

“Aside from that lackluster denial?” Lotor arched an eyebrow. But then, oddly enough, he crouched down and started picking through the gravel. It felt weird to see someone so casually elegant rummaging in the dirt.

“I’ve studied fencing since I was eight years old,” Lotor said without bothering to look up. He lifted a stone, weighed it in hand, and discarded it. “I’ve also practiced several forms of hand to hand combat almost since I could walk.”

He picked up another stone and straightened up, tossing and catching it a few times.

“I’m quite familiar with the capabilities of the human body and its limits. You, Keith…”

Keith’s spider senses flashed a warning as Lotor whipped the stone at his face. Instinct moved him, and a fraction of a second later he held the stone neatly in his hand.

Lotor smirked.

“…do not seem to have those limits.”

Keith grimaced, caught out. He dropped the stone and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I have good reflexes. So what?”

“Good reflexes indeed,” Lotor mused, eying him the way one might eye a lab specimen. “You also never break a sweat in P.E., and I’m quite sure that if I looked in your bag right now, I’d find a familiar outfit.”

Keith tensed.

“You’re full of shit.”

“Am I?” Lotor advanced. “Then you won’t mind me checking your bag to allay my suspicions.”

Lotor reached out, and Keith jerked back reflexively. Lotor tutted.

“Honestly, you give yourself away so easily.”

Keith growled.

“I don’t have to let you go through my stuff just to prove some stupid point.”

“So stubborn,” Lotor lamented. He backed up a step, but Keith’s relief didn’t last. “Suffice it to say, I know who you are, and I have adequate evidence to be believed should I choose to make that information known. I imagine that’s something you’d rather avoid.”

It was blackmail, then. Shit.

“What do you want?” Keith asked, hoping it wasn’t anything too crazy. He’d made plenty of enemies running around as a masked crime-fighter, and if his secret identity got out to any of them, he could say goodbye to what little peace he had in life.

“Access.”

“Access?” Keith echoed, baffled.

“To you,” Lotor clarified. “To your mutation. You _are_ a mutant, aren’t you? I want exclusive rights to document the genotype and gene expression of Spiderman.”

That was… not what Keith had been expecting, but at least he wasn’t asking for money or protection or something.

“Are you seriously that into genetics?” he asked, still incredulous.

“Does the root of my interest matter?” Lotor countered. “You'll benefit as well, I'm sure. How much do you truly know about your mutation? About its more subtle effects on your physiology? You could have weaknesses or health risks that typical humans don't.”

He had a point, though Keith was loath to admit it. Everything he knew about how his body had changed, he’d had to figure out on his own, often by accident or through sheer trial and error.

“I could go to a real doctor for that.”

“Please.” Lotor huffed derisively. “You’re an emancipated minor living on welfare and whatever’s left of your father’s estate. You can’t afford a doctor who would keep their mouth shut.”

Had this guy been stalking him or something?

“And if I say no?” Keith asked, mustering what defiance he could.

Lotor grinned slyly.

“Then I find the next most profitable use for this information and act accordingly.”

Keith’s composure faltered.

“You’d sell it to the papers?”

“Or whoever’s willing to pay more.”

There were mob bosses in the city who could outspend news organizations ten-to-one and not even feel it. If one of them found out where Spiderman slept, Keith was as good as dead.

Trapped, but hesitant to admit it, Keith was distracted from his growing agitation by the notification buzz on his phone. He pulled it out and saw a live news notification: a robbery at a jewelry store, meta-human suspect.

“Look, I don’t have time for this,” Keith said, vainly hoping he could give Lotor the brush-off.

“Oh?” Lotor seemed unperturbed. “Well, I suppose it would be rude of me to keep you if you have somewhere to be. Go on. Be a _hero_. You can get back to me about my offer later.”

He said “hero” like it was some absurd vocation, like an Elvis impersonator or a dog food taste-tester. Keith bristled, but he had a job to do and an opportunity to postpone this uncomfortable conversation. Both were more important than replying to some implied insult.

He turned to leave, but only made it two steps before Lotor’s voice stopped him.

“And Keith?”

He looked back reluctantly, and Lotor grinned like a man who already knew he’d won.

“Don’t keep me waiting too long.”

Keith nodded curtly, knowing he had little choice, before running off to find somewhere hidden enough to change. Lotor was a problem - a big one - but he was a problem for another time. Right now, he needed to get his head on straight so he could catch a bad guy. He’d figure out what to do about Lotor later.


	2. The Second Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not long after their deal is made, Keith pays Lotor a surprise visit. Lotor is not pleased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took longer than expected. >.>;; With any luck, the remaining chapters will go faster!

Lotor tapped his finger against his chin, staring at the half-finished outline on his laptop screen. The assignment was nothing challenging, just a simple book report, but it was hard to force himself to complete it when his mind was elsewhere.

The evening news had shown Spiderman embattled with a slime beast, giving Lotor the chance to make some observations on Keith’s abilities. Even before making contact with Spiderman at school, he’d amassed a considerable reserve of information from news clips and eyewitness accounts. Just because he’d secured Keith’s cooperation didn’t mean he’d be abandoning such a fruitful resource.

What he’d learned so far was intriguing. At minimum, Keith’s mutation afforded him improved strength and durability, the ability to ascend nearly any vertical surface without equipment, reflexes that bordered on pre-cognitive, and then there was that webbing…

The footage from the slime monster battle had been especially good, thanks to the efforts of the increasingly competent Channel 09 News Station’s helicopter-based camera crew. They’d gotten better at capturing Spiderman’s exploits, likely due to experience and the company’s willingness to invest in higher quality camera equipment.

Stabilizers for aerial cameras were expensive, but likely worth it when weighed against the increased viewership and advertising revenue that came with offering dramatic, up-close coverage of super-powered conflicts.

Keith’s motives were somewhat harder for Lotor to divine.

Keith’s interventions in city affairs came at great personal risk, but for what reward? There had been no sign of Spiderman seeking monetary compensation thus far, and the mask eliminated all chances of personal fame. A few convenience stores and delis boasted about serving Spiderman free slushies and subs in return for thwarting robberies, but there were easier ways to get a meal.

Was he seeking glory, then? Fulfilling some personal sense of justice? Acting out a power fantasy?

Earlier that day at school, Keith had provided hair and saliva samples for Lotor’s experiments. Lotor was taking advantage of his parents’ temporary absence to analyze the DNA using machinery in his mother’s lab. He’d have the results by morning, and he’d likely spend weeks - if not months - interpreting them. Yet even that wouldn’t give him Keith’s motives.

So far, he’d learned that Keith’s mutation had been induced rather than occurring naturally, though the boy was still cagey about how exactly he’d acquired it. And that added another layer to things, didn’t it? Whether the mutation was intentional or accidental, whether anyone else knew of the method, whether it had been applied to anyone else and with what result... Even if Lotor’s objective was to study Keith’s genetics, he much preferred to work with people whose motivations he understood.

 _King Lear_ had its tragic charms, but with a puzzle like this before him, it really couldn’t hold Lotor’s interest.

Lotor was debating whether to press on with the essay or call it a night when he heard a jostling at his window - his _third story_ window. At first, he dismissed it as a squirrel, but then he heard the latch come undone and the window start to slide open.

Lotor startled to his feet and whipped around to see some disgusting creature crawl through the opening. It took him a moment of alarmed confusion to realize that the figure was familiar, albeit crusted in green goo.

“Don’t step on that rug,” he ordered, as one tainted foot descended towards the floor.

“It’s already dry,” Keith’s disgruntled voice assured him. “It’s not going to get on anything.”

Still, the miserable young mutant had the decency to obey, stepping on the laminated hardwood rather than the nice, dry-clean-only rug.

“What are you doing here?” Lotor demanded. The working relationship he’d established with Spiderman most certainly did not include unannounced home visits.

“I need your help,” Keith said, wrestling off his filthy mask. At least the face underneath had stayed mostly clean, minus a few spots where the goo had seeped through the mask.

“And you couldn’t have showered first?” Lotor wrinkled his nose pointedly.

“I _tried_. This stuff won’t come off. I can’t even get out of my suit!”

“So you came here?” Another reason to question Keith’s judgment.

“Look, I know you’re into science and chemistry stuff. Can’t you figure out some way to get rid of this gunk?”

“Why should I?” Lotor asked, arms crossed. “You show up at my house - my _room_ \- unannounced and uninvited, asking favors. Just because we have an arrangement doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

“I know that!” Keith shot back. “It’s just…” He shifted awkwardly. The dried goo made the motion stiff. “I don’t really have anywhere else to go. You’re the only one who knows I’m Spiderman.”

When Keith looked back up at him, his eyes reminded Lotor of nothing so much as a puppy that had gotten into something foul and now regretted it.

Oh god, that’s what this was, wasn’t it? Lotor hadn’t acquired a test subject; he’d adopted a stray, and now it was looking to him to fix its troubles. If he were sensible, he’d send Keith away. He’d forbid the mutant from entering his room again and lay down strict boundaries for their relationship as researcher and subject.

Keith stared at him hopefully.

Lotor sighed.

“We’ll need to find a proper solvent to handle that… substance. Come along, _hero_.” He emphasized the word in a way that assured Keith he looked anything but heroic. “We’ll need to use my mother’s lab.”

Keith relaxed visibly.

“Thanks.”

“Left to your own devices, you’d probably injure or poison yourself. You’d hardly be of use to me then.”

Lotor led the way out of his room, and Keith fell in step behind him.

“Is there anyone else home?” Keith asked, glancing warily down the dark, wood-paneled hallway.

“Not at the moment,” Lotor assured him. “My parents are away at a business conference, and the staff have gone home for the evening.”

Keith looked him over with a small frown.

“Do you ever wear casual clothes?”

Lotor looked down at his outfit, his usual combination of slacks and a button-down shirt. It was hardly what he’d call dressing up, but then, perhaps it appeared that way to someone who attended school in ripped jeans and faded t-shirts. Still…

“I refuse to take advice on dressing myself from a man wearing full-body spandex and the unidentified bodily fluids of a slime beast.”

“Fair,” Keith conceded.

“Besides,” Lotor couldn’t help but add, “I’m wearing house slippers. That makes it casual.”

Keith frowned perplexedly at that, but said nothing more.

They walked in blessed silence until the hallway opened into the cavernous expanse of the main entryway. It was a stately and somber room spanning two stories with a high-vaulted ceiling and a grand staircase.

“This place looks even bigger on the inside,” Keith said. “Is it just for you and your parents?”

“Yes,” Lotor admitted. “Not exactly an efficient use of space, but it does make an impression.”

“I’ll say.”

Stately oil paintings, huge woven rugs, expensive draperies, and all of them tinged with the dark shade of purple his father favored. It was a home designed not for the comfort of its dwellers, but the intimidation of outsiders - an apt reflection of its master’s personal philosophy.

The metal door to Honerva’s lab was hidden away in an alcove on the ground floor. Lotor blocked Keith’s line of sight with his body while he tapped the access code in on the keypad.

“While we’re here, be sure not to touch anything. My mother doesn’t like her experiments disturbed.”

“What kinds of experiments are in there?” Keith asked, his tone caught somewhere between wary and curious.

“Mother’s interests tend towards the life sciences, particularly genetics.”

Gene splicing and cloning were her favored areas of study, Lotor knew, though the specifics of her experiments were rarely offered to him. What he knew of her work was that it was brilliant, if morally questionable. Hence the need for his father to go with her to conferences and throw his weight around. Nothing like threats and bribes to convince politicians and academic institutions to enact favorable policies, or just to look the other way.

“Is that why you’re so interested in my genes?” Keith asked.

“I’m not trying to emulate my mother, if that’s what you mean,” Lotor said. “Though I suppose it’s natural that part of my interest should stem from observing her work.”

He opened the door to reveal a sterile white and steel grey room. There were a series of long tables with meticulously labeled cupboards beneath them and shelves crowded with specimen jars. Along one wall several bulky machines with no obvious function stood. A few of them hummed steadily.

On the opposite side of the room were the decontamination showers, emergency eye wash station, and fire extinguishers. There was also a door with a lock similar to the one Lotor had just opened, save that it also had a slot for reading ID badges.

It was all familiar to Lotor, and he went right to the drawer containing scrapers and petri dishes.

“Whoa…” Keith walked up to one of the larger specimen jars and squinted at it. “What’s that?”

“That would be a pig fetus exhibiting diprosopus, also known as craniofacial duplication,” Lotor explained, following Keith’s gaze.

“So it has two faces?”

“Indeed.” Lotor chipped some of the dried goo on Keith’s shoulder into the petri dish as he spoke. “It’s actually caused by the abnormal behavior of a protein during fetal development rather than the fusion of embryos, as is the case in most instances of two-headed animals.”

It was something Lotor could easily write a paper on, just as he could with any of the specimens in his mother’s upper lab.

“In fact,” Lotor continued, “I suspect that your mutation was caused by some form of protein as well.”

“Seriously?” Keith stared at the malformed fetus with growing alarm.

Lotor chuckled.

“Don’t worry. I doubt you’ll be sprouting a second face or anything of that nature,” Lotor assured him. “Such fundamental changes to basic anatomy only occur in the early stages of pre-natal development. I imagine the worst you’d have to worry about would be some form of aggressive cancer.”

“Great,” Keith said dryly.

Lotor left him to contemplate the specimen jars and slid the petri dish and its sample into one of the large machines for analysis.

“How much of the city would you say is coated in this substance?” Lotor asked. The slime beast hadn’t gone down easily, and the fight had been messy. Roads, vehicles, storefronts, and a few unlucky individuals likely shared Keith’s misfortune.

“I don’t know, a few blocks?” Keith guessed. He grimaced. “Don’t know how they’re going to get rid of the stuff now.”

“I imagine the city would pay well for a serviceable solvent,” Lotor mused. 

Keith raised an eyebrow at him incredulously.

“Do you seriously need _more_ money?”

“What you see is my parent’s fortune, not my own,” Lotor said, leaning casually against one of the long lab tables. “They have little interest in helping me make my way in the world, save as a means of controlling me.”

It was for that very reason he’d abandoned his private schooling for a public institution. He’d had enough of his father holding tuition over his head as a threat or a source of obligation.

“Is that why you’re interested in my mutation?” Keith asked, frowning as he turned fully away from the specimen jars. “You think you can make money off it somehow?”

“Yes and no,” Lotor said. No harm in explaining things to him. “There might be some profit in an exclusive scientific paper on a famous meta-human, but my goals are somewhat more specific. I’ll begin applying for colleges during the next year, and having a unique, well-received scientific publication to my name would likely be worth a full scholarship to any institution I might choose.”

Keith stared at him.

“You’re blackmailing me for college money?”

“There are worse causes.”

The machine dinged as it finished analyzing the solidified goo. Lotor checked the readout on the screen and frowned.

“Unfortunate.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Keith asked, peering over his shoulder.

“It seems I won’t be patenting a new solvent after all.”

Lotor turned to one of the cupboards below the long lab table and pulled out a gallon jug of clear liquid.

“This should do well enough.”

“What is it?” Keith asked, eying the jug warily.

“Just a mild acetic acid solution.”

“Acid?” Keith yelped, glaring at the jug in Lotor’s hands as if it had personally poisoned his mother.

Lotor sighed.

“ _Vinegar_ ,” he clarified.

Keith looked at him skeptically.

“Vinegar?”

Lotor unscrewed the cap and held it out for Keith to smell. He did so, wrinkling his nose at the powerful odor.

“And it’ll get rid of the goo?”

“That ‘goo’ is a mildly basic organic compound,” Lotor explained. “Vinegar is mildly acidic and highly effective in breaking down organic compounds. It will work.”

“Why do you have vinegar in a lab?” Keith asked.

“Because it’s a useful solvent. Case in point,” he said, looking Keith up and down. “Now, take this and go to the decontamination shower over in the corner. Make sure to rinse as you go if you don’t want to irritate your skin.”

Keith took the jug of vinegar and his goo-encrusted self into the stall and pulled the heavy plastic curtain into place. It created an opaque barrier, and all Lotor could see was a vague outline of Keith shifting around awkwardly as he figured out how to turn on the shower. The pungent smell of vinegar didn’t take long to reach him, even with the water running, and Lotor made a mental note to run the fans before he locked up the lab.

“Is it working?” he asked, after a few moments.

“Yes,” Keith called back, albeit not very enthusiastically. Lotor smirked, permitting himself a bit of cruel amusement. A little olfactory misery was only fair punishment for showing up in Lotor’s room uninvited.

There was little to do while Keith washed up, and Lotor’s eyes slid inevitably toward the locked door near the showers. Behind it, Lotor knew there was an elevator with buttons for five basement floors.

Lotor had only ever been down to the first.

The rest were for his mother’s private experiments. Maddeningly, he only knew the vaguest details of what they encompassed: some form of gene splicing involving rare samples. Surely there would be tools and equipment useful to his own research on the lower floors, but Honerva guarded her private labs fiercely. Even her son wasn’t allowed access.

Eventually, Keith poked his head out from behind the curtain, hair slicked to his face and mercifully goo-free.

“Do you have towels?”

“In the cupboard next to you, above the counter.”

Keith stepped out of the shower fully-dressed and soaking wet. Lotor opened his mouth to scold him for dripping on the floor, but paused, mouth open.

Wet spandex really didn’t hide anything, did it? Without the coating of monster goo, Lotor had an unobstructed view of Keith in his skin-tight costume. Was a posterior like that another fortunate result of Keith’s mutation, or was he just naturally gifted in that… area?

Lotor’s eyes snapped up as Keith finished toweling off and turned to face him.

“I smell like a salad bar,” he groused, dropping the empty jug on the table by Lotor with a hollow plastic thunk.

“Vinegar is a common ingredient in salad dressing,” Lotor said, trying not to let his amusement show. Judging by the way Keith pouted at him, he’d failed.

Well, at least Keith hadn’t noticed Lotor checking him out.

“Now,” he continued, “get out of my house. Some of us actually sleep on school nights.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate chapter titles: "Lotor is secretly a softy" and "Lotor sneaks a peak".

**Author's Note:**

> Keith has a potty mouth, and Lotor's a little shit. I'm sure they'll get along just fine.


End file.
